Structural and dynamical properties of Mg65Cu25Y10 metallic glasses studied by in situ high energy X-ray diffraction and time resolved X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy

We present a temperature investigation of the structural and dynamical evolution of rapidly quenched metallic glasses of Mg65Cu25Y10 at the atomic length scale by means of in situ high energy X-ray diffraction and time resolved X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. We find a flattening of the temperature evolution of the position of the first sharp diffraction peak on approaching the glass transition temperature from the glassy state, which reflects into a surprising slowing down of the relaxation dynamics of even one order of magnitude with increasing temperature. The comparison between structural and dynamical properties strengthens the idea of a stress-induced, rather than pure diffusive, atomic motion in metallic glasses. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.